Broncos & NFL

Broncos' Von Miller has full attention of foes

Pass rusher chipped or doubled with regularity

The Broncos' Von Miller looks on in the fourth quarter of last Sunday night's game the Giants in Denver. (John Leyba / The Denver Post)

ENGLEWOOD — Mike Mayock pauses then warns he doesn't have his full Von Miller file in front of him, so what he's about to say is from his memory of "checking off the boxes" on Miller about eight years ago.

This is what the NFL Network analyst does as one of the nation's draft gurus: He checks off boxes.

So Mayock begins with the first box that was checked for Miller, back in 2010, when Miller returned to Texas A&M for a fourth season when he had the goods and the stock to go pro after three. Mayock recalls the other box that was checked, at the 2011 Senior Bowl, when Miller dominated not just in the game, but throughout the week of practice.

Then Mayock rattles off all the boxes that were checked at the 2011 scouting combine.

"He ran a 4.53 (40-yard dash), he jumped 37 inches, his short shuttle time was 4.06 (seconds) and his three-cone was 6.70," Mayock recalls. "That doesn't mean a lot, but to put it in perspective, he had a workout at the combine that most wide receivers would be jealous of."

And Miller did it at 246 pounds, Mayock says.

"He went through the process leading up to the draft and all he did was check off boxes and do it at the highest level," Mayock says. "He kind of came out of the draft where if you didn't think he was a top-five pick, I'm not sure anyone would think that at that point."

Mayock remembers the fine details about Miller's rise to the NFL because Miller is one few can forget. He's a one-man wrecking crew who has forced opposing offenses to acknowledge and plan for his mere presence every week.

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But the cost of doing business for Miller is steep, especially lately.

Every game, opponents have sketched a blueprint for trying to contain Miller: Find Von. Chip Von. Double-team Von. Heck, triple-team him if you need to.

According to Pro Football Focus' analysis, Miller has been chipped (or blocked by a tight end or running back before releasing into a route) 21 times this season, fourth-most in the NFL through Week 6. Through Week 5, Miller had been chipped on 10.5 percent of his pass-rushes, then the most in the league.

"I was chipped in college, but it's never been like how it is now," Miller says. "Now it's just like the norm, every single play all game. In college, they would start to chip, but after a while, they would, like, stop. Now it's like every play."

And as opponents zero in on Miller and put more resources into slowing and attempting to contain him, the Broncos have been forced to tweak their scheme as well, making Miller a complete game-changer.

Earning more attention

In DeMarcus Ware's 12 years in the NFL, the former Cowboys and Broncos star would warn younger pass-rushers that when they first arrive, they'll get their coveted one-on-one matchups — until they establish themselves and prove attention needs to be paid to them.

The chips and doubles are an earned frustration.

But when Ware signed with Denver in 2014, his conversations with Miller were a bit different. He would be chipped, Ware told him. He would be doubled, often by a guard or center who would slide to his side of the field. He would be tripled, too, and the issue would be bigger than just him.

"I would tell Von that now it's not an individual thing anymore," Ware says. "It's a team thing."

Because the double-teams on Miller would allow others on the line or the opposite side to get one-on-ones.

Like, say, defensive end Derek Wolfe.

"Then there will come a time where Derek knows that Von is going to get double-teamed, so you'll run plays like chip stunt, where Derek will go first, Von will get up the field and ... then it'll create a gap, in the B gap (between the guard and tackle), for Wolfe to get through," Ware explains. "He'll be the 'contain' guy now, and then Von will wrap around and he's free.

"So you start becoming more of a smarter, intelligent pass-rusher than just beating one man. You're beating a whole offense, you're beating a team that's now scheming for you."

In Wade Phillips' two years as Miller's defensive coordinator in Denver, the Broncos had what current coordinator Joe Woods describes as a "base menu" of pressures they would use up front.

"He kind of figured out, 'OK, this is the way to get him if they're doing this and this is the way to get to him if they're doing that,' " Woods says of Phillips. "But I wanted to be a little more creative with what I'm doing."

So this year, the Broncos created different pressure packages and have done more with stunts to try to create one-on-ones for Miller and allow him greater flexibility to move around — and also to take advantage of the times his teammates have one-on-ones.

"Teams are making it hard because some teams will let him get lined up and then they'll move it to him," Woods says. "So when we play coverage, there's not a whole bunch you can do if they want to max out and go to him."

And when Miller does get free on the outside, the ball is often already out of the quarterback's hands.

"We watched all of our third downs," Woods says. "We have guys coming free, the quarterback is taking one hitch and getting rid of the ball. We're creating a lot of incompletions, but we don't have a lot of opportunities to make plays on the ball. That's the negative part."

Beating double-teams

With Miller — and with Ware, too, during his career — defeating double-teams and manipulating chips are art forms. It's built off an innate instinct.

"The way he can time the snap count and those things, it's freakish," Raiders quarterback Derek Carr says of Miller. "I remember my rookie year, catching the snap and he was already behind me. I didn't know, I was like, 'Do I still do my drop?' What do you do?"

It has developed with game experience and repetition.

"The first thing is how quickly a player identifies what the double-team is," Mayock says. "In other words, is it a running back waiting to the outside? Is it a guard who has turned his protection out, or to your inside? Where is the double coming from? How quickly do you recognize that so you can have a plan to defeat it? Because in your head, if you're thinking, 'I'm going to do an inside spin move. I got this tackle set up for an inside move.' No matter how good that inside move is, if they're turning the protection that way with the guard, you're just going to spin right into the guards."

It's honed by teachings from others and a recognition of opponents' tendencies.

"Like teaching Von (to) get outside of the tight end," Ware says. "If the tight end is going to chip you, why don't you power the tight end into the tackle, knowing that now it's a timing thing with the running backs. Once the tight end releases, the tackle doesn't know what to do. And the quarterback doesn't have anyone to throw the ball to either because you just pushed a dude that he needs to be throwing it to into the tackle. So it gives you a second chance to rush the passer."

And with Miller, it's enhanced with natural gifts — a bend that allows him to get almost parallel to the ground, enough power to bulldoze 300-pound tackles and a burst off the line that is measured in fractions of a second.

"You look at him, he's really a physical specimen," Woods says. "He's an outside rusher, but he has the movement of a defensive back. He's so explosive off the ball, he's really unblockable. Unless they chip him, he's really unblockable."

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